Todd Sundsted

Better dead than bored.

Introduction: https://epiktistes.com/introduction
GitHub: https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec
Pronouns: he/him
🌎: Sector 001

Public Key

npub1mk4fph9lfx7a6egc2pe0t70ayaw3d3wk52ln5x225h7spspuzr9qlmputz

NIP-05 Address

[email protected]

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsdm25smjl5n0wav5v9quh4l87jwhgkcht290e6r992tlgqcq7ppjspzfmhxue69uhk7enxvd5xz6tw9ec82cspp4mhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mq5tv2gs

Publishing to

offchain.pub

nos.lol

relay.damus.io

Author Public Key

npub1mk4fph9lfx7a6egc2pe0t70ayaw3d3wk52ln5x225h7spspuzr9qlmputz

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Last Notes

2026-10-27 11:41:47 GMT

v3.14.0 ("question authority") is the end of a [long](https://epiktistes.com/objects/M09zfOjhRZk ) [road](https://epiktistes.com/objects/dmb1DOZ2yaA ).
The goal was *pluggable, algorithmic* feeds. "Pluggable" because I want to drop a script into a directory to add a new algorithm—not recompile the server. "Algorithmic" because I want predictable, fine-grained control over what I see and how it's organized.
I've been working on this feature, across releases, for almost *four months*. A recent [thread](https://epiktistes.com/remote/objects/690644 ) gave me the motivation to just get it done!
The discussion in that thread also shaped the result: *algorithmic feeds* ships with four example *algorithms* (called "judges") that demonstrate what's possible:<li>quiet_posters shows posts from the people you follow whose posting frequency is in the bottom 25%</li><li>long_reads groups posts over 500 characters</li><li>community groups posts from threadiverse servers (Lemmy, PieFed, etc.)</li><li>polls puts all polls in one feed</li>
One interesting implementation decision: the exchange format between server and judge is an *SQLite database* holding the batch of posts to be judged. Rather than rolling a custom data exchange format, you get a well-tested file format that brings schema support, serialization/deserialization, and a query language nearly for free.
Here is the full set of changes in this release:
**Added**<li>Algorithmic feeds, judged by executables in <code>etc/judges</code>.</li><li>Accept community-relayed votes authorized by the object's audience.</li><li>Include the linked SQLite3 version and its features in NodeInfo.</li>
**Fixed**<li>Pick up a remote actor's rotated public key.</li><li>Don't save actors embedded in community-relayed activities.</li><li>Ignore community-relayed and directly delivered activities attributed to a local actor.</li><li>Reload an actor's page only when that actor's Refresh button is pressed.</li><li>Hide the Refresh button on a local actor's panel.</li><li>Fall back to the default avatar when a refreshed icon fails to load.</li><li>Enable icon repair on actor panels and actor cards.</li><li>Keep the no-replies timeline queries on the timeline index.</li>
**Changed**<li>Judge feed posts in the background instead of in the request.</li><li>Reconcile each key once when an actor is blocked or unblocked.</li>
#ktistec #crystallang #activitypub #fediverse

2026-10-23 01:06:00 GMT

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my theory is that they are AI chatbots...

2026-10-02 22:03:34 GMT

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do you know what the actual numbers are?

2026-07-14 14:28:12 GMT

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is "users are dumb" a response we're hearing from open source developers here on the fediverse?

2026-05-17 14:44:38 GMT

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a good question! one and the same thing for me. i'm just tired of having to go "somewhere else" to interact with events. fwiw, my personal bar is pretty low, but i increasingly think this is a major missing piece.

2026-05-17 13:13:45 GMT

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i don't know about anyone else, but the thing i'm personally bumping up against now is people trying to post about events without being able to *properly* model events in the fediverse.

2026-05-16 20:13:11 GMT

how widely adopted/supported/implemented is FEP-8a8e? is that a safe direction to converge for federated events?

2026-05-11 14:12:33 GMT

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this is amazing! thank you for taking the time to post it!

2026-04-05 21:56:46 GMT

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> But my main point is that welcoming marginalized groups should be the focus, not opinions about AI
i am very very much in alignment with this.

2026-04-05 18:08:46 GMT

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consider though that there are people in marginalized communities who are also "AI people". are they not welcome? is anti-AI (or anti-whatever) more important than welcoming marginalized people? literally, where is the line?

2026-03-26 17:30:51 GMT

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it's entirely possibly i just don't understand what's being proposed. i heard "list of fediverse software authored by LLMs" but that may not have been the intended message.

2026-03-26 12:00:50 GMT

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I think these are good concerns but I am concerned about the idea of “tracking”. right now my perception of the fediverse is that it has become by far the most overtly hostile social network I’ve been on with wrath regularly directed at “those who don’t conform” even if they diverge in trivial ways. and I am not the only one with a stake in this saying this! more of that made easier to direct is not going to benefit the fediverse in the long term.

2026-03-11 12:26:45 GMT

I have started work on a Mastodon-compatible API layer intended to support the many Mastodon front-ends available. It is incomplete and requires an explicit build flag to enable, but what's there (the main timeline) already works with the [official Mastodon app](https://joinmastodon.org/apps ), [Tusky](https://tusky.app/ ), and [Phanpy](https://phanpy.social/ ).
Here's the full changelog:
**Fixed**<li>Editor focus now stays in the editor after the first draft is saved. (fixes <a href="https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec/issues/139">#139</a>)</li><li>Filter settings instructions. (fixes <a href="https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec/issues/135">#135</a>)</li>
**Changed**<li>Improved consistency of mini button colors.</li>
As always, check out the [full diff](https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec/compare/39a167b9...c95cd6f3 ) for the complete details.
#ktistec #crystallang #activitypub #fediverse

2026-02-20 10:53:57 GMT

RE: https://epiktistes.com/objects/8yfM5LbtUww
i [just released](https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec/commit/3cd5b4bf ) an experimental version of this feature. i don't love how it looks but i do love reading this way. i'm going back through my timeline looking for chains of posts that i didn't read before that i can (more easily) read now!
#ktistec

2026-02-19 10:46:50 GMT

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> The fediverse is anarchist praxis.
joke (but also not joke) and in reply to your post [here](https://social.wake.st/@liaizon/116092125409285874 ), this is also why we struggle to conform to anyone else's opinion of what the standards should be 😂

2026-02-18 18:43:13 GMT

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there's maybe a need for that, but i'm not confident there's enough capacity to actually *do the stuff* once the deciding has been done.

2026-02-15 15:30:46 GMT

quoting that post

2026-02-09 13:04:51 GMT

I managed to get 2/3rds of quote posts ([FEP-044f](https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/044f/fep-044f.md )) working in #ktistec. The only part remaining is quote posting *from* the server and this depends on functionality to delay delivery until the quote request is accepted (or not). I need that for scheduled posts, so it's a delay but time well spent!
#activitypub #fediverse
https://epiktistes.com/uploads/21d4ce1b/c302/43ff/1.png

2026-01-26 11:52:20 GMT

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i think this is super cool and i want to add this to ktistec! but since i can't read between the lines, are you okay with your iconography library being used like this?

2025-12-25 17:22:03 GMT

I've been using Firefox for two decades. Some of Mozilla's recent choices gave me a reason to look at alternative browsers. There's no way I'm using Chrome, but it turns out that there are more than a few capable Firefox forks. With no real requirements in mind, I started researching. Here are the forks I found in no particular order:<li>LibreWolf (<a href="https://librewolf.net/">site</a>) (<a href="https://codeberg.org/librewolf">repo</a>)</li><li>GNU IceCat (<a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/">site</a>) (<a href="http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gnuzilla">repo</a>)</li><li>Mullvad Browser (<a href="https://mullvad.net/en/download/browser/">site</a>) (<a href="https://github.com/mullvad/mullvad-browser">repo</a>)</li><li>Waterfox (<a href="https://www.waterfox.net/">site</a>) (<a href="https://github.com/BrowserWorks/waterfox">repo</a>)</li><li>Zen Browser (<a href="https://zen-browser.app/">site</a>) (<a href="https://github.com/zen-browser/desktop">repo</a>)</li><li>Floorp (<a href="https://floorp.app/">site</a>) (<a href="https://github.com/Floorp-Projects/Floorp">repo</a>)</li><li>Mercury Browser (<a href="https://thorium.rocks/mercury">site</a>) (<a href="https://github.com/Alex313031/Mercury">repo</a>)</li><li>Pale Moon (<a href="https://www.palemoon.org/">site</a>) (<a href="https://repo.palemoon.org/MoonchildProductions/Pale-Moon">repo</a>)</li><li>Basilisk (<a href="https://www.basilisk-browser.org/">site</a>) (<a href="https://repo.palemoon.org/MoonchildProductions/Basilisk">repo</a>)</li><li>Firefox ESR (<a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/enterprise/">site</a>) (<a href="https://hg.mozilla.org/releases/">download</a>)</li><li>Tor Browser (<a href="https://www.torproject.org/download/">site</a>) (<a href="https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/applications/tor-browser">repo</a>)</li><li>SeaMonkey (<a href="https://www.seamonkey-project.org/">site</a>)</li><li>K-Meleon (<a href="http://kmeleonbrowser.org/">site</a>) (<a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/kmeleon/">repo</a>)</li>
I started with **LibreWolf** since it kept coming up in recommendations. It strips out all the telemetry, bundles uBlock Origin, and apparently tracks Firefox stable releases within 24-72 hours. The catches I found: no auto-updates on Windows (not a problem for me), streaming services need workarounds because it disables Widevine (not a problem for me), and on macOS you have to run terminal commands to bypass Gatekeeper warnings (a negative). It also looks like it might stop working on macOS late next year altogether (definitely a problem).
**Zen Browser** surprised me—it's accumulated 38,000+ GitHub stars since launching in July 2024. It's inspired by the maybe defunct Arc Browser: vertical tabs, split-view, workspaces. It releases weekly. The downside is no horizontal tabs option. I'm not sold on it but I can see the appeal.
There's a whole category of forks that preserve "old" Firefox. **Pale Moon** uses its own rendering engine (Goanna) and keeps the classic Firefox interface. It still supports legacy XUL extensions and NPAPI plugins. It uses fewer resources than modern browsers because it's single-process. The trade-off is that modern JavaScript-heavy sites struggle and some things like CloudFlare challenges fail.
**Waterfox** caught my attention because of its privacy-first stance and support for older extensions. It seems to be mostly one developer, which might make others a bit nervous, but it's not an issue for me. Sometimes less is more.
One thing I learned that seems important: *frequency of updates varies wildly*. **LibreWolf**, **Zen**, and **Floorp** seem to track Firefox releases within days. **Pale Moon** and **GNU IceCat** lag weeks or months. That matters for security patches.
Honestly, while I continue to research alternatives, I'm staying on Firefox. Hardened with the right extensions and configured the right way, it still meets my needs. But it's good to know options exist, and I'm hopeful that something will show up that captures lightning in a bottle the same way Firefox did 20 years ago!
#firefox #browser #privacy #opensource

2025-12-10 12:55:47 GMT

[Release v3.2.3](https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec/compare/2ab2a727...023fd225 ) of Ktistec includes two big features:<li><a href="https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/1b12/fep-1b12.md">FEP-1b12</a> Group federation Improved federation with Lemmy and other forum-type servers. Ktistec supports community and thread follow/unfollow, as well as up-vote/like (down-vote/dislike is supported but there is no visual affordance for that yet).</li><li><a href="https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/9098/fep-9098.md">FEP-9098</a> Custom emojis Support for viewing custom emoji in posts and on actor profiles. Ktistec does not yet support custom emoji creation and management.</li>
The full changelog:
**Added**<li>Support for viewing custom emoji in posts and on actor profiles.</li><li>Actor type (<code>Person</code>, <code>Group</code>, etc.) overlay badges on actor panels.</li><li>Colored fallback avatars for actors without icons.</li><li>Support for robots.txt.</li>
**Fixed**<li>Federation with Lemmy and other servers that support <a href="https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/1b12/fep-1b12.md">FEP-1b12</a>.<ul><li>Shared inbox support for local actors.</li><li>Serialization of <code>Undo</code> includes the undone activity.</li><li>Serialization of <code>Like</code> and <code>Dislike</code> does not.</li></ul></li><li>Notify only once for an object's first received activity.</li>
**Changed**<li>Accumulate metrics by hour for finer granularity.</li><li>Clean up presentation of public followers/following pages.</li>
The next release will include support for *Mastodon polls* ([FEP-9967](https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/src/branch/main/fep/9967/fep-9967.md )).
#ktistec #crystallang #activitypub #fediverse

2025-10-07 16:20:40 GMT

wondering what’s the easiest thing around that can quickly take a video and transcribe the audio? ideally in a way that I could add a “transcribe” button to #ktistec. i appreciate the benefits of video but it’s not the format i’m looking to consume most of the time.

2025-09-27 16:15:41 GMT

With the addition of the @npub149w…se5q account, [Ktistec](https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec ) (the server) now supports multiple users.
I still have a few rough edges to fix, but there's a good chance official multi-user support will be included in the next release.
#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang

2025-09-17 02:48:53 GMT

I was planning on adding support for custom themes in [release v2.4.13](https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec/releases/tag/v2.4.13 ) of Ktistec. That turned out to be difficult, so I implemented post visibility instead—which then also turned out to be difficult. *C'est la vie.*
The editor now includes radio buttons for controlling post distribution and visibility. In particular, you can now send messages directly to mentioned users without sending them to all of your followers.
You can also mark posts as sensitive using the content warning checkbox in the editor. Sensitive posts are hidden behind a summary that readers can click to reveal the content.
figure: screenshot of the editor showing the visibility settings and the content warning checkboxThis release of Ktistec includes RSS feeds and RSS feed discovery. RSS feeds are currently available for the site home page and account pages.
Here's the full changelog:
**Added**<li>Support RSS feeds on the home page and account pages. (fixes <a href="https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec/issues/14">#14</a>)</li><li>Hide sensitive content, spoilers, etc. with content warnings.</li><li>Support direct messages with proper visibility controls.</li>
**Changed**<li>Switch from calendar-based periods to duration-based periods in charts.</li>
**Fixed**<li>Track and federate object updates.</li><li>Fix object visibility bugs in object replies and threads.</li>
#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang
https://epiktistes.com/uploads/e9b57732/93bc/4b1f/1.png

2025-08-18 14:59:05 GMT

fediverse follow-up to a #worldcon question i want to continue to explore...
in this world of very inexpensive, llm-driven content generation, trusted *curation* is going to matter *a lot*! who/what are the editors, writers, zines, sites, etc. you recommend that curate the SF/F *you like to read*? (i like to flex my reading muscles, so i'm ideally looking for written content over podcasts, etc.)

2025-07-15 21:55:08 GMT

After a mental health break, release [v2.4.7](https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec/releases/tag/v2.4.7 ) of Ktistec is out. The biggest improvement is the addition of a *command line switch/option to run garbage collection on startup*. Garbage collection, in this context, trims down your database by deleting old ActivityPub objects that are not connected to your user through:<li>Attribution: Objects attributed to you or actors you follow</li><li>Activities: Objects referenced by your activities or activities of actors you follow</li><li>Collections: Objects in your timeline, notifications, or outbox</li><li>Content: Objects with hashtags, mentions, or in threads you follow</li>
It reduced the size of my database ~24%. Details on usage, warnings, etc. are in the README.
Other changes:
**Fixed**<li>Use single quotes for string literals in SQLite queries.</li><li>Fix <code>WITH RECURSIVE</code> queries.</li><li>Fix broken CI workflow.</li>
**Changed**<li>Present local internal URLs as external URLs in posts.</li><li>Limit pagination size for unauthenticated users.</li><li>Better convey actor/object deleted/blocked status on index pages.</li><li>Improve presentation of inline code and code blocks.</li><li>Clip alt text on thumbnail images.</li>
**Other**<li>Update cached copy of Lemmy's JSON-LD context.</li>
#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang

2025-01-29 13:48:17 GMT

A new release of [ktistec](https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec ) that *improves database performance* is imminent. In the past, database optimization usually meant "fixing a bunch of poorly constructed queries", and I'm sure there's more of that to do—I'm not an expert. But this time, I found most of the queries were as good as they were going to get on my watch (I'm not an expert). If you have a million records and you need to filter and count them, that's just going to take some time...
So this time, I focused on *caching the results of queries* like that (which really means I focused on *cache invalidation*, right). A case in point is commit [d544b1af](https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec/commit/d544b1af357a711c22d965e66a67aa557eb4a83b ). Previously, the nodeinfo endpoint filtered and counted posts on every request, and it took +80msec to do that. Worse, the filtering pushed everything else out of the sqlite page cache, which made the next, unrelated database query slow!
Caching this value, and only *recounting* when I post something, not only dropped the service time for the request to ~1msec but actually improved database performance, generally!
More to come...
#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang

2025-01-26 23:29:28 GMT

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in my case (single-user mastodon → ktistec) the only side-effect was a lot of traffic to the new application that it didn't know how to handle (ktistec doesn't support polls, for example, and i got rid of a few extra accounts). but other than the noise in the logs, posts, shares, etc. worked once i re-followed.

2025-01-19 14:57:34 GMT

Ktistec release [v2.4.5](https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec/releases/tag/v2.4.5 ) rolls out the build time and executable size optimizations I've been blogging about [here](https://epiktistes.com/ktistec/performance/build-time-and-server-size-growth-4 ). It also fixes a few small bugs.
**Fixed**<li>Handle @-mentions with hosts in new posts.</li><li>Handle HEAD requests for pages with pretty URLs.</li><li>Destroy session after running scripts.</li>
**Changed**<li>Delete old authenticated sessions.</li>
I've started a branch full of query optimizations. My general rule—as highlighted in the server logs—is *if a query takes longer than 50msec, it takes too long*. It's time to address some problems...
#ktistec #fediverse #activitypub #crystallang

2024-12-29 15:57:32 GMT

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there's a brief changelog in the [description of the release](https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec/releases/tag/v2.4.3 ). and a more detailed [commit by commit history](https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec/compare/e5dd16ee...1bd44b40 ). the main user-facing feature was content translation support, but it took quite a lot of backend work to support it.

2024-12-29 15:18:32 GMT

@npub1xx7…j78n i just tagged a new release. it looks like the docker build [built the release](https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec/pkgs/container/ktistec ) successfully. congratulations and thanks!

2024-12-27 02:11:24 GMT

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i don't interact much, but i read almost everything you post. hard or soft, please keep it up!

2024-11-01 12:04:00 GMT

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thanks!
export your history from mastodon and import into ktistec?

2024-10-31 21:25:51 GMT

I've been thinking about the [demise of botsin.space](https://muffinlabs.com/posts/2024/10/29/10-29-rip-botsin-space/ ). Running a site for bots is hard (and expensive) but writing and running an ActivityPub-based bot should be easy.
To prove this was the case I added experimental support for bots/automations to [Ktistec](https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec ) in the form of scripts that the server periodically runs. These scripts can be in a programming language of your choice. The server provides credentials for its API in the process environment (if you can use curl you can publish posts), simple interaction happens via stdin/stdout/stderr, and the complexity of using ActivityPub is abstracted away.
The code is only available on the following branch for the moment:
https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec/commits/run-scripts/
There are a couple example shell scripts here:
[https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec/commit/4982925a...](https://github.com/toddsundsted/ktistec/commit/4982925a62be587d0ffaa5b726408aaf14e6a097 )
I have a few enhancements in mind, but it's already proven useful as a means to periodically log data from my server host, and I'll use it, when finished, to publish release notes.
#ktistec #activitypub #fediverse #bots